It could not have been the women’s basketball team that traveled to Southern California this weekend. The team that lost a lead in the final minute before falling 73-67 to UCLA Friday and then never showed up in a 78-58 loss to USC Sunday. Unfortunately for Washington fans, it was.

“I think there’s a lot of basketball left in this team,” coach June Daugherty said after the USC loss. “We have to stop what happened here today and turn this around quickly.”

What happened was the Pac-10’s second-best scoring offense and offensive rebounding team was the victim of two terrible starts that led to two losses, one a heartbreaker and the other a joke.

The latter came at the new Galen Center where USC led from wire-to-wire in a game that was more like a Harlem Globetrotters vs. Washington Generals “game” than an NCAA basketball contest. Minutes into the game, the Trojans (13-8 overall, 7-4 Pac-10) led 14-4 behind some hot shooting. They hit 10-of-13 shots to start the game and Washington (13-9 overall, 6-5 Pac-10) had no answer.

“The game certainly got away from us early,” Daugherty said. “We weren’t executing the scout or the system and we got shook up and weren’t able to regroup until halftime. This definitely was a disappointing game.”

By the break in the action, the UW trailed by its largest halftime deficit of the season, 48-26. The Trojans last four baskets of the half were 3-pointers. Without the 15 points contributed by reserves Jill Bell and Dominique Banks, the Dawgs scored just 11 points in the half.

“USC was playing hard,” Banks said. “They were getting the rebounds and they were all over the place. They were making all of their shots and they were making it hard for us to get into our game.”

Washington outscored USC 32-30 in the second half, but the effort was futile.

“We didn’t come out and stay together and play our system,” Daugherty said.

At UCLA (12-11 overall, 6-5 Pac-10) the Huskies fell behind by as many as 13 points in the first half before pulling to within two points at the break. They nabbed the lead, and with the ball and a one-point lead with under a minute left in the game stood poised to complete the season sweep of the Bruins.

UCLA’s Noelle Quinn had another ending in mind. She drained a 3-pointer to give her team the lead, and then was one of two Bruins to sink a pair of free throws to steal the win.

After winning its first five Pac-10 games, Washington has dropped five of its past six and has fallen from first in the conference to a tie for fifth with UCLA. No. 9 Stanford has a perfect 11-0 mark. Beneath the Cardinal in the standings is No. 10 ASU (9-2). USC and Cal are tied for third.

The Huskies get a chance to avenge a late loss at ASU when the Sun Devils visit Thursday. They’ll have to shoot better than the 32 percent they put up Sunday.

“We just have to get back into practice in Seattle and start all over,” Banks said.

Reach reporter Sam Cameron at sports@thedaily.washington.edu.